I’ve never been a fan of Valentine’s Day because I see it as a superficial way to celebrate an idea of love that isn’t constant or reliable. Romantic love, especially for most women, is exciting and temporarily fulfilling, but it can also be devastating and empty. Romantic love aims to fill a need for love that only Jesus can offer.

Real love, biblical love, the Jesus type of love is messy. It’s painful, sacrificial, endures suffering and hardship, and gives willingly without expecting anything in return. Matthew 5:46 says, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”

It’s not a popular type of love, it’s not even always a rewarding type of love, at least not this side of heaven, but it’s a true, biblical love. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  This is a love that is ignored, disregarded, and even frowned upon in our culture. But Jesus reminds us to “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

You may have people who take advantage of you. You may have someone who has hurt you that you need to forgive over and over again, but Jesus says to love them non-the-less (Mathew 18:22).  In fact, as real women of Jesus there is never an acceptable reason to not love anyone. And love is expressed in the way we treat them whether they deserve it or not.

So today may be a holiday that we have made about romantic love, but I encourage you to make it a day to challenge how you are loving people in general, the way Jesus tells us to love.

“If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you” (John 13:14-15).